


Secrets

by wanderingsmith



Category: The Expendables (Movies)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-19
Updated: 2015-04-11
Packaged: 2018-03-13 17:55:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,979
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3390809
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wanderingsmith/pseuds/wanderingsmith
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>" *You're* the one that went and got married, Lee."</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I ain't got no money, and nobody'd be daft enough to pay me for this. As it is thought, so let it be said; you make the toys, I play with 'em.
> 
> I'm being good! *posting* done scenes  
> ..this one leaves you wanting, doesn't it?  
> ..and thence the disadvantage of posting scenes that are done and sitting there  
> who knows. maybe I'll guilt myself into thinking/reasoning my way to more of it (especially if Hulk continues to be stubborn!!)

The kids had moved on to the pool tables. The old gang plus Galgo and Doc had laid claim to a section of the quieting pub's tables, and spread out. Toll and Caesar throwing cards around in some desultory game as they chatted. Gunner and Doc having some sort of half-threatening half-serious conversation that must revolve around knives, considering the number of them they'd pulled off their bodies in the last half-hour. Galgo was somewhere between the two tables. Sometimes throwing comments in, sometimes staring in awe at the knife pile.

And Lee had picked a chair with its back to the wall, away from all of them, set on picking a poison to buy on the way home. He didn't want something he liked; he wasn't looking for enjoyment. Didn't want something sweet, not after last time. Tequila and sambuca were out; bad things twisted in his head with that shit.

When Barney wordlessly pulled a chair within elbow's reach of him, he tried not to react. He wanted to go back to being friends. He did. But- "What's a good liquor to get shitfaced with?"

The idle question made Barney choke on his swallow of beer, giving Lee a queer, kinda sad satisfaction.

"Since when don't you know any liquor??"

"Didn't say I didn't know any. Just trying to pick a different one." Hearing Luna's higher voice give a victory cheer, Lee took the excuse to keep his eyes on what he could see of the kids around the table, rather than deal with the man next to him.

"There's grappa." 

Lee frowned in thought, then reluctantly turned his head, though he didn't try to meet Barney's eyes, "Grappa.. wine?"

"Distilled wine, yeah. 40%."

"Uh." 

"D'you really think I deliberately keep secrets?"

The question caught Lee off guard and he focused on familiar eyes before he remembered he didn't want to deal with this. And then the half-hidden grief he saw did just as he'd known it would and he was tilting to bump his shoulder against Barney's without a thought. "Sure you do. Old bad habits. We all have them."

He made damn sure to get his eyes back out toward the far bar, letting them unfocus. If he really tried, he could almost catch Caesar's words. And Doc's. Gunner's were too low and Toll too quiet to make it over the background without amplifiers. Annoying. He used to be able to get low voices farther away than Gunner sat. ..Probably not in the last decade, but still-

"I don't mean to keep things from you."

That miserable mumble was perfectly clear, though.

" 'Course you do. Always had a hell of a time getting you to tell me what the fuck you were thinking at the best of times." It was almost weird to realize just how little that had ever really bothered him, before.

Until the information being kept back was plans to bring back some old friend of Barney's. That had... nicked at old insecurities. It wore at a person to never be enough for anyone, in any area of his life. He'd just never been the guy who could accept being pushed aside without whining. Not that it ever got him back what he'd lost.

Well this time he'd learned. Lee Christmas was alone and meant to be. He'd fucking get used to it.

Speaking of that plan. Time to go. Now where was the nearest liq-

Barney's steel grip on his forearm anchored his ass to his chair before he could move and Lee's eyes flew to him in surprise. He'd half forgotten he was really there...

The rock-hard clench in Barney's jaw and the glare on his face would have probably scared most people into thinking he was dangerously furious. 

Lee read fear.

"If you're so used to and okay with my forgetting to say shit, why the hell did breaking out Doc make you so damn angry?"

Before Lee could come up with a comeback to the forceful growl, Gunner spoke up at normal volume from behind him. " 'Cause he's used to being your best pal and you were going to break out one who'd presumably been that before." By then Lee had turned to him with a snarl, though he couldn't jump on him with Barney still gripping his arm. 

Gunner just shook his head at him; *sadly*, of all things! "You need counselling, Christmas."

Well shit. Lee just stared at him. Gunner. Sending *him* to counselling. The fuck was wrong with this *fucking* world??

"Hey, Christmas."

If Lee's arm hadn't still been shackled, he was pretty sure he'd have started a brawl at that point. Gunner was one thing, but if that fucking bayou-crawling-

"Quit trying to make me explode with the laser-look." For once Doc's eyes met his without humour, "I'm not interested in being Barney's keeper. I just want clear, and decent, marching orders, and money in my bank account. You want to be stuck with him between missions, Gunner's right: you *do* need counselling." Doc shrugged, ignoring Lee's gapping mouth, the table-banging roars from Toll and Caesar, and Barney's half-hearted grumbles of mock-hurt.

"Fucking clowns."

Lee nodded agreement at the sigh. And didn't fight when Barney got up and pulled him along.

When they stepped outside the pub, there was only the team's bikes left, and no one else around. Barney went to lean on the wall rather than head home, his hand already in his breast pocket in a familiar move for a cigar, and Lee almost stuck to his plan to get to the nearest open liquor store. Almost.

"You can ask me anything. I don't plan to keep shit from you. And the only other old *close* pal I *ever* had is Tool."

Fuck.

He managed to resists the pull for the minute it took the smoke to reach him, standing halfway to the Ducati. The first sweet whiff kicked him into movement and the next thing he knew the wall was at his back and there was a smoke-haze between him and the night.

" *You're* the one that went and got married, Lee."

Lee snorted, though softly: it had taken him a few weeks, but once the divorce was final and he could focus again, he'd eventually picked up on the fact that Barney really had been.. something like hurt at his going through with that futile effort to pretend that he could have a normal life.

"Not the same."

"Sure it is. If she'd resisted cheating, she'd have sooner or later pulled you away from us."

Frowning at the strange thought, Lee threw a look besides him, catching Barney with his head back on the wall and eyes closed, grief twisting at his features.

Looking forward again, Lee asked quietly, "You said I could ask you anything."

"Yeah."

He stepped away from the wall to face Barney's now-wary expression, "Why'd you cut us, cut *me*, out?"

He more than halfway expected to get stonewalled. Or brushed-off.

Instead, Barney took a long drag, and then answered in a steady tone, eyes locked with his and obviously trying to be emotionless. Though not doing it good enough to pass Lee's radar. "If he just wanted to escape he could have killed *me*. Stonebanks hit Caesar to make me *pay*." Lee's eye widened, starting to suspect- "If he'd had time to watch us-" Barney looked away for a second, jaw tightening before he looked like he forced it open enough to speak, "If he'd seen us together-"

Lee closed the three steps between then and laid his hand on Barney's shoulder.

And Barney turned back toward him, though he wouldn't meet his eyes, his voice low and dead and the cigar hanging forgotten from drooping arms, "You'd be dead."

Okay. Yeah. He supposed he could get that.

He'd have tried to run Barney off from that too.


	2. Chapter 2

Barney's defeated stance wasn't something he could take without reacting. Lee ended up back with his back to the wall, shoulder tight against Barney's.

"Why are you drinking more'n Gunner, Lee." The question was muttered without inflection; thread of fear in it saying Barney knew the answer and dreaded it.

" 's almost funny, but... hearing you say it's over hurt more than Lacy kicking me out."

"Lee..."

He shrugged, "I can get why you did it, now." But it didn't really change anything. He was still alone. Still only realized after it was ripped away that he'd found something to want more than anything in his life in their friendship.

"Just wanted you safe."

Lee shrugged again. "Only place that's safe is death." It was going to take time to dull out the needy pain crying out for their old closeness. Maybe even for more; whatever chance of that there'd ever been. But the job was worth it. His remaining friends were worth fighting that pain for. 

He could see Barney's hand shaking as it brought the cigar up for puffs. Eventually Barney spoke, almost too low to understand, "Was terrified the day I realized life's as cold as death without you besides me. Knew it'd mess with my thinking sooner or later." He ground out the last of the stub and stepped in front of Lee, just out of touching range, face in shadows from the streetlights behind him. "You came back. Even after I chased you off again, you came back."

Lee shrugged, fatalistic, "Can't really help it."

Though he couldn't see them, he knew Barney's eyes were locked on his in the silence. Part of him wanted to turn away, or just close his eyelids. Protect what was left of his heart when it was still too wounded to take hits. But if he could protect himself from Barney, he wouldn't have come back. Would have accepted his boss' dismissal and moved on; no matter what pain and self-hatred he'd seen in the man's eyes.

"One thing I guess I *did* try to keep secret from you, is you're more than just a close pal to me, Lee."

There was just enough of a shiver in the words that Lee was frowning and shaking his head before he really processed any meaning in them. "Barney-" Barney's smokey palm came to rest gently over his lips as the man's head shook a slow 'no'.

"It's not a request, Lee. Just a statement. Somewhere along the way, the.. rock-stubborn friendship we ha..have, shifted in my head. And you're more than a friend. More like a missing piece of myself. I'm not going to change how- It doesn't change anything between us. You just.. wanted truth. That's a truth."

Lee's eyes were wide by then. Lips parted behind Barney's palm as he tried to stare into eyes still in shadow. When Barney's hand moved back, his flew up to grasp it. Hold it tight between them, eyes still staring.

"You.. You mean that?"

"Yeah."

And Lee's eyes dropped from the intensity as he huffed a choked laugh, gripped the hand tighter in case Barney took it the wrong way.

When he looked back up, head slowly shaking from side to side, he spoke quietly, smiling disbelievingly, a new hope burning closed the wounds inside. "Then we're both fools." He raised the hand up and took a calming breath before pressing a kiss to the skin of that life-roughened palm. Raised his eyes to where he knew Barney's were and lowered their hands over his heart, smiling a little to hear a quiet grunt from the man standing inches from him, to see glitters appear where Barney's eyes had to be; widened, maybe, enough to catch light. "Wasn't until I lost it that I let myself see it wasn't just friendship anymore. Want all of you. Don't want to sit waiting for a job so I can be besides you again. Can be your pal again."


End file.
